Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Will Psychiatric Transformation Miss the Mark Yet Again?

REMINDER: In The Archive is all of the articles that I have posted since I started this blog. There is TONS OF INFORMATION there for you to learn from. It's the type of information that not only saved my life...It also has given me a better quality of life.

By Dr. Mercola

Will Psychiatric Transformation Miss the Mark Yet Again?

While this is a step in the right direction, I hope they make
the effort to go far enough... The NIMH admits that their approach
began with certain assumptions, some of which, I think, may or may
not be completely accurate in all cases. And if so, then the most
effective treatments may still be completely overlooked. For example,
one of the assumptions is that:

The assumption that all mental health problems are due to
biological dysfunction is to take too narrow a view, in my opinion,
because there’s also a spiritual and a bioenergetic component both
of which few psychiatrists bother to address. Also, by limiting it
to biological disorders involving brain circuits they may
completely miss the boat in terms of how nutrition affects your
mental health.

Mounting research shows that your gut health has a truly profound
impact on your mental and emotional states, so to say that the
cause of mental disorders is rooted in faulty brain circuits alone
still seems rather dogmatic and archaic.

We may in fact be complicating matters when we really should
be simplifying. There’s no doubt in my mind that proper nutrition,
optimal gut health and vitamin D levels, along with regular exercise
and an overall reduction in toxic exposures can go an enormously
long way toward curbing the trend of rising mental health problems.

SPECT Imaging—An Invaluable New Tool for Psychiatry

That said, I’m not going to throw the baby out with the bathwater
just yet, as I believe there may be room for modern diagnostic tools
even within something as nebulous as mental health. For example,
last year I interviewed Dr. Daniel Amen, a physician, board-certified
psychiatrist, and one of the foremost experts on brain imaging
science and brain plasticity. His work with SPECT imaging demonstrates
how it can be a remarkably useful tool for psychiatry, especially more
complicated cases.

Brain SPECT imaging is different from the anatomical MRI or CT
scans. SPECT measures blood flow and activity patterns. It looks at
how your brain works. (It's similar to positron emission tomography
(PET) scans, which looks at glucose metabolism.) When using SPECT
imaging, physicians look for three things:

Areas of your brain that work well
Areas of your brain that are low in activity, and
Areas of your brain that are high in activity

The job then becomes balancing the different areas of your brain.
According to Dr. Amen, most cases of depression and anxiety are
symptoms of underlying brain dysfunction. For example, depression
can arise if brain activity is too low in your frontal lobes. This
inactivity means you cannot inhibit your negative feelings. Depression
can also be a symptom of heightened or excessive activity in your
frontal lobes, as this leads to an inability to stop thinking the
bad thoughts in your head. A traumatic brain injury can also result
in symptoms of depression. In fact, according to Dr. Amen, this is
very common.

However, he does not dismiss or overlook the impact of lifestyle
on brain function. Rather, he readily admits that some brain
dysfunction is directly related to toxic exposures and/or a
combination of poor lifestyle habits, such as a poor diet and lack
of exercise. And, unlike most psychiatrists who rely on drugs, Dr.
Amen's treatments to restore and optimize brain function focus on
the four-pronged approach of diet, exercise, nutritional supplements,
and correcting negative thought patterns.

This, I believe, is a beautiful example of how, by combining
the best of both worlds modern diagnostic tools and science, combined
with natural common sense lifestyle changes can truly make a
difference in people’s lives. While getting a SPECT scan can be
expensive, it may save you tons of money in the long run. According
to a recent study by Dr. Amen and his colleagues, getting a SPECT
scan will change what your doctor does 79 percent of the time.

"We have a new outcome study that we're publishing on 500
consecutive patients that came to the Amen Clinics who were complicated.
After six months, 85 percent showed significant improvements in their
quality of life,” Dr. Amen said. "We are very excited about our work.
And we have been teaching our colleagues about it for decades... But
it's horrifying what's happening overall in psychiatry. I would be
very cautious about seeing a psychiatrist that is not gathering data
on your brain before he or she puts you on multiple medications."

The Rise of Energy Psychology

Many people avoid energy psychology as they believe it is an
alternative form of New Age spirituality, yet nothing could be further
from the truth. It is merely an advanced tool that can effectively
address some of the psychological short circuiting that occurs in
emotional illnesses. It is not any competition at all with any
religion but merely an effective resource you can use with whatever
spiritual belief you have.

My favorite technique for this is the Emotional Freedom Technique
(EFT), which is the largest and most popular version of energy
psychology.

EFT was developed in the 1990s by Gary Craig, a Stanford
engineering graduate specializing in healing and self-improvement.
It’s akin to acupuncture, which is based on the concept that a vital
energy flows through your body along invisible pathways known as
meridians. EFT stimulates different energy meridian points in your
body by tapping them with your fingertips, while simultaneously using
custom-made verbal affirmations. This can be done alone or under the
supervision of a qualified therapist. By doing so, you help your body
eliminate emotional scarring and reprogram the way your body responds
to emotional stressors.

While the following video will teach you how to do EFT, it is
VERY important to realize that self-treatment for serious mental
health issues is NOT recommended. For serious or complex issue you
need someone to guide you through the process as there is an
incredible art to this process and it typically takes years of
training to develop the skill to tap on deep-seated, significant
issues.

About Me

Hi Folks, My name is Larry Nelson. I'm 67 years old, I live in central
Texas and I'm enjoying my retirement.
In May of 2007 I was diagnosed with cancer in my prostate. I wasn't
real surprised because my mother died from the 3rd battle with cancer.
I was told that, on a scale of 1 to 9, I was rated 7. They said that I
had a very short time to live unless I have my prostate removed and
follow up with Kemo-Therapy.
I tried to explain to the uroligist that I had been studying cancer
treatment on the internet and that I had decidedto go the alterative
route. I had to repeat myself 3 times to get the doctor to acknowledge
my comment. He told me that it wouldn't work.
It is now February of 2012, I don't have cancer problems that I know of.
I have lost friends to the medical treatment of cancer and I had decided
that I wasn't going to go through the HELL that they did before they died.
What I want to accomplish with this blog is...I want to let as many people
know as I can that there is a much better way to deal with cancer. There
is many people like me that have beat cancer with the alternative approach
to beating cancer.